X posts
X posts
stated on January 23, 2025 in X posts:

Video shows “roads heading to Mexico are jam packed as mass deportations have started.”

False

Video doesn’t show roads to Mexico after Trump’s immigration crackdown. It was uploaded in December

By Loreben Tuquero
January 24, 2025

If your time is short

  • The video was uploaded in December, before President Donald Trump started his second term.

See the sources for this fact-check

A video shows vehicles stalled in traffic on a road headed to what a sign says are the “Mexico International Bridges.” X users are claiming this is the immediate effect of President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts. 

Conservative pundit Benny Johnson, among other X users, posted the claim Jan. 23 on the platform.

“The Trump effect,” the posts’ captions read. “Roads heading to Mexico are JAM PACKED as mass deportations have started taking place in cities across the country.”

Claim about roads to Mexico, with False graphic, 01-24-2025
Figure 1: Claim about roads to Mexico, with False graphic, 01-24-2025

(Screenshot from X)

But this video was uploaded before Trump became president after being elected on a promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.

The video originally was posted by TikTok user @lizsxxv on Dec. 21, 2024. Trump was inaugurated Jan. 20.

The video appears to have been taken in Laredo, Texas, based on Google Maps verification.

On the first day of his second term, Trump signed a slew of executive orders, many of which were geared toward limiting immigration. 

These orders included directing Defense Department and Homeland Security secretaries to “finish the wall” along the nation’s southern border; directing the Defense Department secretary to deploy personnel to the southern border; ending parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans; and ending birthright citizenship —  the nation’s longstanding practice of granting automatic citizenship to people born in the U.S. 

Many of these actions are likely to face legal challenges. A federal judge on Jan. 23 temporarily blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship order from taking effect.

But this video doesn’t show traffic on roads heading to Mexico because of mass deportations ordered by Trump. We rate that claim False.